[Footnote 2: Until the time Menes, with whom historical times
begin, ruled in Egypt among visionary heroes or mythological
gods.]
It is first in the transition period, from the late rule of Thebes
(XVII-XX Dynasty) to the so-called period of Sut (XXI-XXX Dynasty)
that there appears, in the wall pictures of the Pharaohs' tombs,
representations of the horse. The oldest, now known, picture of the
horse is found on the walls of the tombs of Seti I. (1458-1507 B.C.)
under whose reign the Israelite wandered from Egypt. The horses of the
mortuary pictures are very well drawn, and have an unmistakable
oriental type. There has therefore undoubtedly existed in Egypt high
culture, for over 4,000 years, without representation of the horse,
which was the next animal domesticated after the cat.
From this time on we find the horse frequently represented both by the
vainglorious despots of Mesopotamia and on the so-called Etruscan
vases, which appeared after the influence of Greek art, when, on
almost every urn, horses in lively action and in various forms of
bodily development, almost always of an oriental type, are to be
recognized. But neither here, nor in Homer, nor in the many later
representations of the horse on the Roman triumphal arches, etc.
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